topic Re: My First Impressions/experience in Plusnet Feedback

My First Impressions/experience

thisoldman — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:54:19 GMT

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Good evening fellow plussers,
Well i have now been with plusnet for just over a week and suddenly I feel this overwhelming need to share my initial experience of the service and......to provide you with a good laugh?
I had previously been with an isp " across the pond" (lol) and they were cheating me by charging me for an 8mb and delievering 1.2mb., so one sad night in a fit of pique, i uninstalled their software and decided to join you know who. This was a purely random selection from a list of isps ( not a good idea.)
The gret day arrived. I opened the box and immediately had a ] monor heart attack.There was no installation cd like my previous isp. As I am very very deaf I decided not to phone and to read the instruction booklet first.
Even for an old cog like me , it took me 2 mins to set the whole thing up, and I felt like applying to the open univ for a degree in plusnet installation theory. lol
With great fear and trepidation I logged onto the my account page. There were curious things called peer to peer and usernet andd community and forums.
I cried. There were no " across the pond" facilities like chat rooms or entertainment., not that the loss of chat was a great inconvenience but the absence of
instant messaging was serious. How would i be able to im the samaritans or my favourite pastor in my hour of need?
I ran a speed test and was getting 1.8mb. I fainted. Memories of the across the pond came to mind. But those wonderfull experts in tech support, eventually
convinced me that all would would be well in 10 days, and as moses declared....all is ok i now get 3.7mb. i also discovered that my exchange has a max of 4mb delivery so clearly there is no way i am ever going to get an advertised up to 8mb service.
Should isp's , knowing a customers exchange limitations, not warn them that 8mb is simply a pie in da big sky figure or the deluded manifestation of some weirdo in
an isp'smarketing department.
As i could fine no instructions about usernet or p2p I plucked up the courage to read the forums. They were, gentle on the eye if not somewhat depressing. Speed seems to be a major moan but i was gratified by who mnay people said the customer and tec support were excellent.
Then.......I tried the community page. Why any sane person would wish to know what plusnet staff in sheffield are doing in their tea break sure had me puzzled.
Still i suppose it is nice to know what the weather is in that part of the world just in case my bbc weather page goes on the blink!!
I then fainted again......when i read a post suggesting that unlimited did not mean unlimited. Quite what it does mean was far beyond my simple understanding of the english language, but then as humpty dumpty said to alice " a word means whatever i want it to mean" How strange that plusnet should adopt the alice in wonderland verbosity.
I then noticed on my personal meter that i had uploaded each day 10 mb. Since i have never and wouldnt know how to upload anything, I am clearly convinced that
some spies from outer mongolia have invaded my machine and are uploading information to their secret services. Perhaps some one reading this epistle will no doubt reassure me and explain what uninitiatted uploading means ? lol
Well, i guess I better attempt to rein in this epistle as my usage allowance is going thru the roof.
It is far far too early to say whether i like or dislike my new provider.
As a profoundly deaf person, who uses the rnid typetalk service, it is painfully clear to me and the rnid operators who have joined my calls to plus net, that the company sure could do with some typetalk familiarisation training. Typetalk calls take ages and hence the need for a "called person " to try and speed things up a little bit........( take the hint plus net)
I hope you all have enjoyed this initail epistle and I shall post again........in a few months. As my across the pond friends would say in their indian accents "have a nice day"

Re: My First Impressions/experience

Strat — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:04:41 GMT

A very warm welcome to the ~~mad house~~ Forum thisoldman and a great first post

Re: My First Impressions/experience

pierre_pierre — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:15:51 GMT

and you are the second person today to ask about "how do deaf people contact Plusnet"
there are also a lot of old people here with a sense of humour, take a look at some recent posts on the "Chit Chat" section
some are
some are just
some are
but mostly

Re: My First Impressions/experience

Strat — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:23:32 GMT

The above post by Pierre Pierre might give you the impression that all Forum members are a couple of sandwiches short of a party.
This is simply not true
Fortunately however many of us have a wacky sense of humour which often reveals itself especially in Chit Chat and Pierre's graphics are world famous. It may spill over into other forums but there are always Moderators (Plusnet customers) around to slap our wrists in the nicest way possible.
Enjoy

Re: My First Impressions/experience

scootie — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:35:19 GMT

welcome to plusnet and the forums

Quote
Should isp's , knowing a customers exchange limitations, not warn them that 8mb is simply a pie in da big sky figure or the deluded manifestation of some weirdo in an isp'smarketing department.

this use to be the case that isp's didn't inform customers on sign up what there phone line was capable off.
the problem with the marketing of max adsl technology is the fact that it can give end users upto 8mb if they live close to the bt exchange and thats why its marketed as UPTO 8mb
my self live gd distance from my exchange and can get 3mb but i knew that because of sites like these http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/adslchecker.php and http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/adslchecker.welcome .
As of 6 or so months ago isp's started to give the same est of speed on your line when signing up (DID YOU NOT GET THIS?)
ive been with plusnet for some time now and well before the est of speed came in but when i changed products from bbyw3 to unlimited i got the est of speed on my member centre.
look at the attachment below have you not got the same here ( you need to be logged in to plusnet member centre to see this) https://portal.plus.net/my.html?action=data_transfer_speed
don't worry about the me they get locked away when sane people are about
EDIT:

Quote
I then noticed on my personal meter that i had uploaded each day 10 mb. Since i have never and wouldnt know how to upload anything, I am clearly convinced that
some spies from outer mongolia have invaded my machine and are uploading information to their secret services. Perhaps some one reading this epistle will no doubt reassure me and explain what uninitiatted uploading means ? lol

do you mean this(again you need to be logged in to see this page) https://portal.plus.net/view_my_broadband_usage/index.php or are you runing your own software bandwidth monitor on your pc.
If its the plusnet monitor then both download and upload is classed as usage and there shouldnt be any thing on there that spilts usage into down and up.
As for never uploading anything this is true in the sense that you may not have picked a file to upload to a site or some one.
But when ever you load a webpage your PC will send some traffic back(upload) to the server to say thanks got all that or sorry didnt get this bit of the page correctly can you send that bit of data again.
web broswing only should'nt clock up 10mb upload usage in aday i wouldnt think.
but if you do alot of iplayer ect then this could cause upload traffic to go to and above 10mb
if you look at the upload MB attachment below you will see i downloaded a new game that was about 300mb beetween 6pm-7pm
and that all i did apart from looking at the forum and that clocked up about 5mb on the upload

Re: My First Impressions/experience

Oldjim — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:01:05 GMT

A belated welcome from another old man who just returned from a visit to see the grandchildren

Re: My First Impressions/experience

jelv — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 23:30:44 GMT

Quote from: ASBO
As for never uploading anything this is true in the sense that you may not have picked a file to upload to a site or some one.
But when ever you load a webpage your PC will send some traffic back(upload) to the server to say thanks got all that or sorry didnt get this bit of the page correctly can you send that bit of data again.

Before that, every time you click on a link or enter a URL in your browser, or check for mail or do anything else on the internet, your PC will send a request to the targeted server (and before that it has to send a DNS lookup request to change the name in to a IP address) - all of those are uploads (your PC is sending out data).

Re: My First Impressions/experience

pjmarsh — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 07:32:04 GMT

Welcome thisoldman. Just to expand on Jelv's post slightly, even before you turn your computer on your router is uploading (only a small amount though). The best way to think about it all is having a conversation. Right at the very begining your router will say to the Plusnet servers, I'm here, they they will ask who you are, your router will tell them and they will give you access (or deny it!). You go into a web browser and that will send out a message saying I would like to load a page from the server with the name x, a DNS server will then say back the address for server x is a.b.c.d. Your computer then says to a.b.c.d can I have this page please, and that server will tell you what you want etc...
Each time your equipment is "talking" you are uploading. Each time some other equipment is "talking" to you, you are downloading.
And who said we where all mad!
Phil

Re: My First Impressions/experience

thisoldman — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:01:52 GMT

Good morning to the faithfull: A big thank you to all who responded to my epistle. You all seem so kind and tech savy.
Is there any way I can find out how to email fellow plussers rather than communicate via these forums, and can i ask if any of you would be interested in seeing established a plusnet chat room.
Have a nice day.

Re: My First Impressions/experience

pjmarsh — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:12:26 GMT

Like this one? I don't think it gets a huge amount of use, but does get some.
Phil

Re: My First Impressions/experience

dvorak — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:12:42 GMT

The forums are a good way to communicate as well as helping you it helps others to learn that might be having similar issues
Anyone on the forums can be contacted via a PM, which is the little speech bubble under the names.
There is a PlusNet IRC here for chat http://usertools.plus.net/irc/, come along and say hi

Re: My First Impressions/experience

dvorak — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:13:10 GMT

Quote from: pjmarsh
Like this one? I don't think it gets a huge amount of use, but does get some.
Phil

Come and join us then Phil

Re: My First Impressions/experience

pjmarsh — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:15:04 GMT

I am meant to be working!
Phil

Re: My First Impressions/experience

dvorak — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:23:42 GMT

Aren't we all?

Re: My First Impressions/experience

Oldjim — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:46:39 GMT

Nope

Re: My First Impressions/experience

James — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 09:33:16 GMT

I am working

Re: My First Impressions/experience

craigyoung — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 09:47:29 GMT

Ooh, James has got into work. Is it lunchtime already?
/runs for cover.../

Re: My First Impressions/experience

James — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 09:49:10 GMT

I start at 10am this week

Re: My First Impressions/experience

craigyoung — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 09:53:33 GMT

Me too.
Well, to be fair, I get in at 8, but don't really get round to doing much before 10. By which time, it's almost lunch, so no point in starting anything major - may as well leave it till the afternoon, once I'm properly warmed up.
Although I need to leave early today, and I don't want to risk leaving a project half finished. Probably best to leave it till tomorrow at this late stage in the day.....

Re: My First Impressions/experience

pierre_pierre — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:30:13 GMT

and I am doing what I do best, sitting on my A